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With a new iPhone, I'm motivated to try out a whole bunch of new apps (pref free of course unless awesome).

And thus I ask of you, dear fellow HFer, to refer to me your top 3 apps.... one of which should not be covered by a previous poster... with detail why you recommend this app.

Following apps excluded :

- Facebook
- Google
- Kindle

I shall start :

1. Allrecipes : Simply put, an awesome way to cook, find new recipes and useful tool to cook with.
2. TuneInRadio : Free internet radio... listen to music from anywhere in the WORLD!
3. Tripadvisor : "Where should we go eat?" This question is now an exciting adventure. Resto reviews, the MUST have tool for any trip!

If you like sports ESPN scorecenter is great. Has scores of all the games for a night.

Pandora. Replaced local and satellite radio in my car. Seed with some artists and tracks and you can fine tune a genre to you heart's desire.

Tweetbot. My twitter app of choice. Keeps you where you left off, and syncs between devices. So you don't have to trudge through a hundred tweets on one that you already read on another.

Tapatalk. Forum app for when the wifi is slow or down, or when a full browser isn't available.

System Status/Network Analyzer
...really, this is two separate apps. Don't care. They will tell you more than you need to know about your device, the network you're using, etc.

Remote
...just something about being able to control your iTunes from the phone. Appeals to the lazy guy inside of me.

Dropbox
...seriously, why wouldn't you want to be able to access it from your phone?

--Patrick

Simplenote - Free

Your notes are taggable, available on the device and via the internet using a regular browser, and it's not full of useless features.

Google Authenticator - Free

If you use google for email, keep in mind that many of your important accounts (such as paypal, banks, shopping, etc) use your email as a fail safe - meaning anyone that has access to your email has access to your money. Google now allows for two-factor authentication, which is a fancy way of saying that you can set up the account so that even if an attacker finds out your password they still need your cell phone or this app to get into your account. This app is free, and helps you secure your google account significantly without using text messages or internet access, so it works well even on an ipod.

Mobile Mouse - Expensive

If you watch your computer from a distance (usually for entertainment) then this will allow you to use your iOS device as a trackpad for mouse control, and keyboard for typing. Works for windows and mac computers. It's an expensive app relative to the cost of most apps, but it's worth it if you regularly watch TV, Blu-ray/DVD, Netflix, or hulu on your computer from your couch.

OneNote - Free. I am a huge Apple fan, but nothing holds a candle to OneNote. Evernote is out there, too, but it pales in comparison when it comes to organizing information, and especially for formatting and including multimedia content.

ProCamera - A huge improvement over the built-in camera app. It gives you nice touchscreen based control over exposure and focus. Camera+ is also a good alternative.

Yelp - Nice way to find businesses by category. Works well in a big city.

Most of my suggestions for productivity are already up there except for one.

Flipboard- RSS aggregation app.

stienman said:

Mobile Mouse - Expensive

If you watch your computer from a distance (usually for entertainment) then this will allow you to use your iOS device as a trackpad for mouse control, and keyboard for typing. Works for windows and mac computers. It's an expensive app relative to the cost of most apps, but it's worth it if you regularly watch TV, Blu-ray/DVD, Netflix, or hulu on your computer from your couch.

Click to expand...

Thank you for this - now I have the missing piece for setting up my HTPC.

I've never used iOS so I can't comment on the iOS ports of these apps, but I have used the Android versions of these and found them to be excellent. Given the relative ease of coding for iOS vs coding for Andriod, I can't imagine the iOS versions would be worse:

Waze - Free crowdsourced navigation, intended for commuters but I use it for long-distance navigation just fine. Shows you traffic speeds, accidents, speed traps, etc, and alerts you when you're coming up on them. You can ping other Waze users to ask about traffic further along the route, or just to chat (not recommended while driving). Yes, there's also Apple Maps, but Waze won't deposit you in the middle of Lake Erie when you're just trying to get to Bay Village (like Apple Maps threatened to do to me the one time I used it).

You Need A Budget (YNAB) - Hands down, best home budgeting software I've ever used. The desktop software is $40 but comes with free lifetime upgrades and a license to install on as many computers as you want. Once your budget is made, it can sync with the YNAB app ($5) via Dropbox so you always have access to your budget. The app lets you input and edit transactions as well. As of right now, you can't edit the actual budget from the app (at least not from Android), but I think that's coming.

Sketchbook - A basic drawing app that I use all the time for in-the-field room diagrams. Plenty of options for brushes and pencils, though, and you can save as either a flattened image or a photoshop project.

Pandora
Songza
5k Runner (which isn't free, but it was only $2.99 and is a great program)

Waze will not give up on a given route, even when it means backtracking by up to 20 miles. That's what you get when the crowdsourced maps are wildly inaccurate, and have to be crowdsourced repaired. I gave up after finding dozens, if not hundreds, of incorrectly placed streets, invalid turns, and stuff that was just plain wrong in Morgantown alone.

Artstudio - Ever-improving art app that's closer to Photoshop than any other I've encountered.

Strip Designer - Easy comic maker and image manipulation. Plus, you are able to add fonts from Blambot.

Photobucket - It's Photobucket.

First two aren't free, but they are high quality.

moar

Photon - a browser that allows you to view Flash content on an Apple product

Puzzlecraft - puzzle game that will OWN you

Crackle - free movies and shows owned by Sony, with some commercials - decent for free anime series

I have multiple astronomy apps, most are pay, but I was able to get them free during special promotions. I think a good free one is Distant Suns Lite, I think the view turns with your phone (I can't tell because my ipod touch has no GPS).

What I am playing on the iPad now ans strongly recommend - Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, Avernum, Bastion, Wraithbone, Horn, Chaos Rings 2, Angry Bids Star Wars, Walking Dead and the Amazing Spiderman.

Its spooky how some games on the iPad3 push out 2005-8 PS3 game graphics, at a higher-than-full-HD resolution, and the little fucker's battery still lasts from 10 hours to 15, I really can't wait until I get the newer iPad"4" and new games come out with even better graphics... with Android still being a wasteland of piracy, fragmentation and unoptimized games, with some developers like EA actually earning more from their mobile division than than from their console games, iOS gaming is pretty much here to stay.

I also suggest going to slidetoplay.com, toucharcade.com, and check IGN's daily release list for the best new games and price drops (specially Wednesday's and Thursday's release lists)